Being Careless
by Aranya Ver'Sarn
Summary: The Netherstorm is a very dangerous place, but for a few fearless souls, its volatile wonders are more than worth taking the risks to appreciate. For some, it may even be one of the rare indulgences they can find in order to not have to face something of even greater volatility within themselves. Timeframe: Before Kael'thas has a "setback."


**_Usual Legal Disclaimer:_** Please refer to "DISCLAIMERS SECTION" on my profile.

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The twisting skies of the Netherstorm shifted and surged with magic and chaos. Ley-lines coursed across the atmosphere in vivid display. Flashes of ether-lightning rent the air. The nether-winds drifted over the broken, wasted landscape. Chunks of what had once been a whole and healthy world floated, sailed, and crashed into one another and around each other.

And one mere mortal fancied making this her playground.

A running leap off the edge of a floating "island" sent arcanist Aranya Ver'Sarn freefalling through space, whooping and screaming like an excited girl. Air rushed past her face, whistling by her long, pointed ears. Her spine tingled fiercely, her every nerve was on edge, every muscle tense with anticipation. She wasn't aware of her breath - was she holding it, or had she lost it? Her eyes never left her target. The distance flew by as she dropped, and in the _last_ instant, before the _last_ second that would have seen her falling forever into nothingness, she timed a spell. Both of her arms raised in a sparkling gesture, and she _floated_ for the space of about a yard and a half, coming to land - perfectly safe and sound - on another island in the crumbling waste.

Aranya released a breath in subconscious relief, her body untensing, satisfaction making her smile broadly. Her heart drummed in her chest, though she'd have sworn it had stopped while she was airborne. Scanning around, the elf's luminescent green eyes searched the shattered landscape of islands held suspended in space by forces of magnetism that were still strong even in this broken world, hunting for her next target. Going over to the opposite edge of the island that she presently occupied, she spotted two prospects. One had a smaller surface area, making it more of a challenge to land on, but the other one was further down in elevation – a rather long drop. Excellent. Fishing into her pocket for a single light feather, she resolved that she would take on the smaller one at a later time.

Running to the edge at breakneck speed and jumping out with a bound, Aranya was sent hurtling through the writhing air once more.

Down, down, _down_ she went.

Her arms came up again as she invoked the spell of Slow Fall, the feather that she held dissolving in a small, glimmering flash around her hands, and she drifted for the very last few seconds of her descent to land on her feet. The arcanist looked over her shoulder and grinned up at where she had just come from, the crashing sizzle of energy storming all around echoing from various distances in her sharp ears.

_This neverending storm was __**hers.**__ She __**owned**__ it._

The next target was an obvious one, directly below her position. The alignment between the two islands was quite steep, however, so she would have to be particularly careful about her timing to avoid, on the one hand, having the drift take her on an overshot course past the edge and into the depthless infinity below, and on the other, falling directly all the way to the surface with nothing to break her fall. Aranya took a moment to inhale a breath, releasing it slowly as her senses directed themselves to this next challenge, every sound, color, and sensation registering more acutely in her brain with heightened alertness. Another breath, and then a small jump off the side...

The light of stars, too clear and too close, and of rifts warping in the sky illuminated her flushed cheeks and gleamed on the strands of her wind-tossed hair. Her blood _sang_ with adrenaline and with every breath that she took of this mana-charged atmosphere.

Aranya was filled with a sense of triumph as she magically caught herself again, right at the _last_ critical moment, landing gracefully in a half-crouch.

Taking in her surroundings from here, she could see that there were a handful of islands adjacent to this one, but there was one in particular that seemed to be of interest. It was sharply slanted and had a long surface. It wouldn't be that long of a fall to reach (which was mildly disappointing) but beyond the higher end of it, Aranya could see more desirable targets. If she wanted to get to _those,_ she would have to make the jump for _this_ one. Fel-lit eyes on her goal, she skirted the edges of the island, estimating the most ideal point from which to reach her destination. Finding that ideal point, another running leap launched her into glorious freefall once more...

A hair-raising change swelled in the atmosphere...

Followed by a crackling, jagged burst of ether-lightning, searing _right_ across the trajectory of her fall!

Raw, blinding, pure, powerful.

Terrifying.

The stunned elf was too caught up in the shock of the moment to even scream - startled eyes wide, mouth open in a silent gasp.

In the next instant, the charge made ground along one of the walls of one of the greater land masses of the vicinity, leaving Aranya _narrowly_ unscathed, but she soon payed for her lapse in sensibility once she realized - too late - that the encounter had thrown out her timing. No magic caught her, and she landed _hard_ - a cry ripping itself from her mouth as knees, arms, hands, and shoulder all felt the punishment of gravity and momentum.

_Dammit!_

Aranya cursed and growled inwardly at her failure.

Pain having registered, her brain immediately switched to damage-assessment. A quick take of internal stock told her that nothing was broken. Some of her dark hair had fallen across her eyes in her tumble, and she very carefully lifted one arm to move it aside, before rolling off of her shoulder to lie on her back.

She took a few seconds to re-center and breathe, before she lifted herself to sit upright so that she could check her legs. Pulling up one of the cuffs of her pants, she saw that her knee was very red, but otherwise undamaged. No doubt there would be some colorful bruising there by tomorrow. Rolling the shoulder that she had been lying on, she discerned no pain in the joint itself, but pulling down on the short sleeve of her tunic and exposing that shoulder to her eyes' scrutiny revealed a fair-sized bruise already blooming under the skin, further towards the limb that it was attached to. Holding her hands up in front of her face, she took off one of her fingerless handwraps and had a look at her bare palm. Broken skin, but no bleeding. All in all, it appeared that there was nothing about her state that one of Dorogan's salves and a nice cup of tea couldn't fix.

Aranya's eyes suddenly went wide, and then she brought her palm to her face, fingers splaying across her eyes and the bridge of her nose, letting out a groan of dismay as she laid herself back along the surface of the island once more.

Dorogan... Yeah, he was going to want an explanation for this.

The orc warrior that the arcanist had come to call her friend didn't exactly _approve_ of this pastime of hers. Not that he would try and stop her. She had her reasons for why she did this, for why she came out here.

Removing her hand from her face, the elf woman gave a wry look up at the crazily shimmering sky, seeing the orc's brawny shoulders, tusky mouth, and intimidating glower in her mind. Closing her eyes, she heaved a sigh, listening to the clash of things moving in the crumbling waste, the roar and snap of ether-lightning, and feeling the smooth stone of the island underneath her with the bare skin of her arms and lower back.

A diversion, she had told him. Something to do in her leisure hours when she wasn't delving into pursuits of magical inquiry - whether for herself or for a benefactor - or rendering some service to the Horde, the Scryers, the trade cartels, the list went on and on. Something that challenged her mind and body. Something _so_ demanding of her full attention, that she wouldn't have room to dwell on that ever-present _craving_ that she - that all Thalassians - carried around.

_Even now, she could taste the flux of Outland's magical flows at the back of her throat, like a very faint, sweet aftertaste that never faded away and never offered any satisfaction, only teased her with its __**lingering.**_

There were... other ways to put that addiction, which her race was so susceptible to, effectively out of one's mind. But coming here as Aranya did was a notion more appealing to her than the idea of lounging in some dark room, choking on bloodthistle smoke, with nothing but fragments of disjointed thought to keep you company. Let others spend their leisure as they wished, but _that_ wasn't for her. It would only ruin her singing voice, anyway.

Aranya snorted softly.

The thing of it was, Dorogan could easily understand _why_ she did this, and _why_ she needed it. As a warrior, he could even respect it. What seemed to confuse and unsettle him, however, was _why this?_

Riding or flying, even (and often especially) in enemy territory, was _fun._  
Hunting some rare and powerful creature and taking back trophies was _fun._  
Knocking someone's teeth out in a bar fight was _fun._

Jumping over lightning and freefalling through bottomless space was not something that resembled Dorogan Wolfstrike's standard idea of _fun._

The corners of Aranya's mouth turned in a slight, lopsided smile.

He just worried for her, that was all. Sometimes, even to the point that he would growl about it and argue, "How is being careless with yourself a good idea in _any_ sense? For _any_ reason?"

Burning green eyes opened to the distorted heavens.

Funny, wasn't _he_ the one to tell her how he admired her way of being so careful with her words, thoughts, and decisions, but bold with her actions?

Aranya lifted her gloveless hand, scrutinizing her bare palm once more. She fingered very gently at the edges of the broken surface of the skin. There was a flaw in the orc's argument. A major one. The fact of the matter was that she _couldn't_ be careless, not out here. She had to be fully focused, aware, alert, and on top of her skills and timing if she wanted to stay alive. Carelessness was the _last_ thing that she could afford. What happened here tonight - that encounter with the ether-lightning - was a fluke. A one-in-something chance. Aranya knew what she was doing. Her eyes slid to her wrist, and her fingertips soon followed, brushing over the tiny, black emblem of a phoenix permanently inked under her skin on the inside edge, there. An icon of her people. A symbol as personal as it was political. _Careless_ was giving your trust to those who hadn't earned it. _Careless_ was sharing your secrets with those who didn't deserve them.

Feeling that she'd had enough time to regain herself, the arcanist slipped her naked hand back into its wrap and rose to her feet.

At the upper end of the island, Aranya surveyed the scene, judging her next move from here. Her face blossomed into a smile, eyes glittering, as she caught sight of one island that was off to the side. The depth and distance across the endless chasm between her and it were _perfect._ Grasping another feather in her hand, she took a running start for it, this time jumping out with a twirl in the air, laughing as her black hair flew in a wild, whirling sweep around her. Her heart lurched into her spine as she dropped, her arms extending almost like wings. Her eyes watched the distance as it closed...

... Her boots barely made a sound as they touched down on stone.


End file.
